Union Solidarity International Promotes Social Media Strategy to Engage Younger Workers
Andrew Brady, director of Union Solidarity International (USi), sends us this:
Union Solidarity International (USi) is only a couple of months old and we have been trying through social media to inform, educate and campaign with trade union members in the U.K. and Ireland on the issues facing our movement across the world. It’s a high ambition but we know people like you share it.
We have been joined in this conversation by thousands of people from across the world visiting our website, Facebook and Twitter pages. We have had more than 20,000 hits on our site since its launch on May Day and now thousands of people across our streams are joining the USi conversation. What also has been pleasing is that we are using newer media streams like Snip.it and Pinteres t , which has been generating significant interest and engagement.
These statistics clearly demonstrate that social media gives us an opportunity to speak directly with people with an interest in our point of view by harnessing all the available streams. As trade unionists and progressives we know our struggles and campaigns for economic, political and social justice resonate with the masses; and now social media is giving us an opportunity to outflank those on the right of the political spectrum to ensure that our stories get out there untouched by the biased sections of the media controlled by wealthy individuals and corporations like Rupert Murdoch.
The other major advantage in continuing is that young people in particular are engaged on social media often on an hourly, never mind daily basis. According to the Office of National Statistics in the U.K., more than 90 percent of those under the age of 24 are on a social networking site. One in two people access the Internet and all their social networking sites via their mobile devices.
In the U.K., more than 6 million people access the Internet on their phones on a regular basis and more than 77 percent of all households now have Internet access. This is at a time when the people under the age of 24 have union density figures of around 12 percent and we have soaring youth unemployment across Europe.
USi has an opportunity to be a social media layer connecting trade unionists with those who are young and perhaps not even in work because of the dire economic situation. We must endeavor to get our movement’s stories out there in the social media bubble to help make us relevant.
For these reasons we are being supported by trade unions in the U.K. and Ireland to create dynamic campaigns and to help unite resistance to the austerity that is sweeping Europe and much of the world. We are also delighted to have received the support of a number of trade unions in Greece who are at the center of the neo-liberal storm and we continue to build links with trade unions in North and South America as well as across Europe and Africa because people recognize the importance of connecting across borders to build solidarity—and we need more of it.
What can you do to help?
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Get people to continue raising awareness of
USi
to become involved.
- Help us build our contacts. Please encourage others to subscribe to our round-ups and regular bulletins here .
3. Give us your views on the site, how to improve it and your ideas about how you can help us source content and campaigns.
Once again, thanks for your support and let’s together build union solidarity!
